This autumn`s stock market crash has produced little but bad news for most advisors and their clients. But as the end of the calendar year approaches, there may be an opportunity to salvage something through tax-loss selling.
In normal years, tax-loss selling (or "harvesting") is a fairly subdued affair, consisting of offsetting profit-taking in non-registered accounts with equal amounts of tax-loss selling, the objective being tax neutrality after all transactions.
Mounting losses in the stock market are taking a toll on insurers` balance sheets and may soon hit clients` pocketbooks via higher premiums, said Charles Brindamour, chief executive of ING Canada Inc., yesterday.
"When the investment potential drops, this puts pressure on prices," the CEO said in an interview after ING Canada, the largest property and casualty insurer in the country, reported a $62-million loss on equity holdings in the third quarter.
The particular IMF report I was asking about was the one stating that Canada was the safest environment for investment worldwide.
When Don presented it on the weekend (not in the handouts) he said it would be posted on the website this week so I`ve been diligently watching for it to show some potential investors.
The vast scope of the global financial crisis became clearer yesterday as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that its 30-member area, representing the world`s developed economies, "appears to have entered recession."
Warning that "a high degree of uncertainty surrounds the outlook," the Paris-based group forecast that the economy of OECD countries as a whole will contract by 0.3 per cent in 2009, before returning to growth in 2010.
There were preliminary indications yesterday that residential mortgage rates could be drifting lower after Bank of Montreal announced a "special" offer of 5.25 per cent on its benchmark five-year, fixed-rate home loan.
BMO said the new rate takes effect Monday and would be available to "all new and existing" customers. Its current posted rate on that product is 7.2 per cent.
WASHINGTON–Prime Minister Stephen Harper says world leaders must stoke the fires of economic growth to fight off a global recession but won`t say what – if any – new spending Canada will do to help.
Harper is delivering his pro-growth message at an unprecedented summit of economic powers trying to repair the damage from the unexpectedly rapid deterioration of international business conditions.
A slowdown in some of the country`s most expensive cities for housing continues to drag down the average sale price of a home in Canada, the Canadian Real Estate Association said yesterday.
The average sale price of a home last month was $281,133, a 9.9-per-cent decline from a year ago. It`s the fifth straight month that prices have fallen in the country`s major markets on a year over year basis, and each month the percentage decline has increased.
Canadian upper-income tax 30th highest in world: survey
OTTAWA -- Upper-income Canadians pay more in taxes than upper-income Americans, but less than most well-to-do Europeans, according to an international tax report.
For example, a Canadian earning the equivalent of $100,000 US would pay $28,780 US in federal and provincial income taxes -- $1,800 US more than an American would pay.
But the comparable tax bill would be $29,070 in the U.K. and $35,700 in Germany, said the report Monday by consulting and accounting firm KPMG.
Victims of identity fraud spent more than $150 million of their own money and spent 20 million hours to resolve the fraud in the past year as part of a ballooning problem that affected almost 1.7 million Canadians, a survey has found.
A majority of victims (57 per cent) do not know how they wound up on a fraudster`s hit list, though it turns out old-fashioned shopping is riskier than online commerce -- 25 per cent of cases were associated with business transactions conducted in person, compared to 15 per cent linked to online transactions. Debit-card skimming operations made up another 13 per cent of the cases.
China`s big financial plan will have global impact
As Beijing clarifies details of its fiscal stimulus plan, the Chinese economy looks set for a surge in building work that will confound western skepticism, says one of Canada`s top businessmen in the region.
"Contrary to what many foreign observers are saying, there is a vast construction boom in the making," said Ken Courtis, the former head of Goldman Sachs in Asia.
Think your borrowing costs are cast in stone? Maybe it`s time to ask
When you deal with companies in the financial sector, you run the risk that their pain will turn out to be your pain.
This is what`s happened recently to clients of Manulife Financial, Canada`s biggest insurance company, and Envision Financial, a large credit union in British Columbia. Affected in various ways by the global financial crisis, both have made changes that resulted in higher borrowing costs for some clients.
Iceland said yesterday it may need to introduce currency controls, raise interest rates beyond already-record levels and ultimately borrow as much as $24-billion (U.S.) to fix its broken economy.
Prime Minister Geir Haarde, announcing elements of a plan agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), indicated immediate needs were not as acute as once thought and $5-billion was sought rather than the $6-billion mentioned a few weeks ago.
Current market turmoil aside, investors will soon have to turn their minds to whether they will sock more money into mutual funds for their RRSPs.
When they do, considering declines in financial markets that have likely shrunk existing holdings, investors will want to be more aware of what it costs to put money in.
Mutual funds are essentially the pooled resources of many investors that fund managers use to buy securities in diversified portfolios more easily than individual investors can. Such securities include stocks, bonds or other investments.
OTTAWA - Canada faces the possibility of a technical recession, but nothing like the previous painful downturn it suffered in the early 1990s, says a senior economist with a Canadian bank.
While the United States is facing a deep 1990s-style consumer-led recession, there is more reasons for optimism here because the Bank of Canada has been cutting interest rates --not raising them as it did in the previous downturn --and the Canadian government is in much better financial shape today to stimulate the domestic economy, said National Bank of Canada economist Yanick Desnoyers.
G20 reforms to hurt Canadian banks less than others
Canadian banks are expected to be less affected than their global peers by the regulatory reforms that emerged from the G20 leaders meeting in Washington over the weekend.
Elements of the action plan include a call for weaknesses in accounting and disclosure of off-balance sheet vehicles to be recognized by accounting standards, for authorities to ensure that financial institutions maintain adequate capital, particularly in terms of requirements for structured credit and securitization, a revamping of compensation schemes, and the reduction of systemic risks linked to credit default swaps and over-the-counter derivatives.
OTTAWA -- Canadians are still in a mood to mortgage.
Nearly four in 10 Canadians still think that now is a good time to buy a house, even though the proportion who expect home prices to fall further has soared and the proportion expecting higher housing prices has plunged, according to survey results published Tuesday.
OTTAWA — The Bank of Canada conceded for the first time that the Canadian economy could be headed for a recession, adding that more stimulus and lower interest rates are needed to cushion the steep fall.
Bank governor Mark Carney said in a speech before a London, England business audience that the Canadian economy has deteriorated more quickly than he had anticipated even only a month ago, hinting strongly he will cut interest rates at the next opportunity Dec. 9.
While Carney did not talk about a recession in his speech, he later told reporters it was a distinct possibility.
"Starting from flat growth in the first quarter of 2009 and the second quarter of 2009 ... recession is a possibility for Canada," he said at a news conference.
Canada`s housing boom has ended, but the shift to a buyer`s market is no reason for alarm, according to an analysis by one major bank Thursday.
Another big bank contended that even the recent 10 per cent fall in Canadian housing prices is significantly overstated.
"We argue against taking an overly alarmist view to domestic housing prospects," said Adrienne Warren, economist and real estate market specialist at Scotiabank.
The leaders of Canada and Colombia signed a new free trade agreement here Friday that opens new markets for Canadian beef, pork, potatoes and other products in the South American country.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Alvaro Uribe signed the agreement just ahead of the annual leaders summit for the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum, which begins here today.
